The Forsyte Saga - Complete eBook

“Yes, sir; but I’m sure it’s the
same, because me and Cook witnessed, you remember,
and there’s our names on it still, and we’ve
only done it once.”

“Quite,” said Soames. He did remember.
Smither and Jane had been proper witnesses, having
been left nothing in the Will that they might have
no interest in Timothy’s death. It had
been—­he fully admitted—­an almost
improper precaution, but Timothy had wished it, and,
after all, Aunt Hester had provided for them amply.

“Very well,” he said; “good-bye,
Smither. Look after him, and if he should say
anything at any time, put it down, and let me know.”

“Oh I yes, Mr. Soames; I’ll be sure to
do that. It’s been such a pleasant change
to see you. Cook will be quite excited when I
tell her.”

Soames shook her hand and went down-stairs.
He stood for fully two minutes by the hat-stand whereon
he had hung his hat so many times. ’So
it all passes,’ he was thinking; ’passes
and begins again. Poor old chap!’ And
he listened, if perchance the sound of Timothy trailing
his hobby-horse might come down the well of the stairs;
or some ghost of an old face show over the bannisters,
and an old voice say: ’Why, it’s dear
Soames, and we were only saying that we hadn’t
seen him for a week!’

Nothing—­nothing! Just the scent of
camphor, and dust-motes in a sunbeam through the fanlight
over the door. The little old house! A
mausoleum! And, turning on his heel, he went
out, and caught his train.

V

THE NATIVE HEATH

“His foot’s upon
his native heath,
His name’s—­Val Dartie.”

With some such feeling did Val Dartie, in the fortieth
year of his age, set out that same Thursday morning
very early from the old manor-house he had taken on
the north side of the Sussex Downs. His destination
was Newmarket, and he had not been there since the
autumn of 1899, when he stole over from Oxford for
the Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to
give his wife a kiss, and put a flask of port into
his pocket.

“Don’t overtire your leg, Val, and don’t
bet too much.”

With the pressure of her chest against his own, and
her eyes looking into his, Val felt both leg and pocket
safe. He should be moderate; Holly was always
right—­she had a natural aptitude.
It did not seem so remarkable to him, perhaps, as
it might to others, that—­half Dartie as
he was—­he should have been perfectly faithful
to his young first cousin during the twenty years
since he married her romantically out in the Boer War;
and faithful without any feeling of sacrifice or boredom—­she
was so quick, so slyly always a little in front of
his mood. Being first cousins they had decided,
rather needlessly, to have no children; and, though
a little sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness,
and the colour of her dark hair. Val particularly
admired the life of her own she carried on, besides